UV burn...what to do??

[Lance]

[PoonTang]

hopefully the eye thing is temporary like "snow blindness"

[Borderjumper]

what kind of bulb was it Christy? You dont have glass on your reflectors?
What frags did you loose? I will send you home with some frags when you pick up the GFO.. it should be delivered tomorrow

[christyf5]

I'm not worried about the frags, they can be replaced (and its not like I don't have any frags ) Most were from Sarah and a couple from Snappy. Life isn't over, its just so bloody frustrating. First the wavebox and now this. Things just happened too close to one another I guess.

The bulb was an ushio single ended, just under a year old. I never bothered to put glass on the reflectors simply because it wasn't required and I never thought the bulb would break and keep running (of all things! in my world when a lightbulb breaks it stops working, apparently this isn't so in metal halide land). In hindsight I really should have glass covers on my reflectors and I'll be measuring them right quick. My regal tang is a complete arsehole and loves to gulp air after eating which often results in his tail flipping water as he dives downward. He sometimes does this when he's bored too.

I've put several screens over the tank on the affected side. It looks kind of funny actually, I'm using an old piece of undergravel filter that came out of a sump I bought, some plasticky green netting and a couple small chunks of eggcrate I found. It still lets too much light through IMO but I'll do the reduced photoperiod too.

I fed everyone some mysis just a bit ago to see if my royal gramma was still around as I hadn't seen him yet. He's a belligerent bastard but timid when he's spooked. I saw his butt as he flashed by so everyone is accounted for (unlikely that he would be affected by the UV as he likes to hide out in the rocks). The PBT ate, so he can see. The scopas doesn't look too bad except for the eyes and he ate. Its mostly the PBT that is affected the worst as he likes that side of the tank and was probably too stunned to clue into the fact that he was getting burned.

Lesson learned: put glass on your reflectors regardless of bulb type if you have retarded fish.

[Delphinus]

I had a lamp crack in half on me. I lost all the SPS under it, but other things in the tank recovered. I'm not sure about the fish's eyes. I'm hoping for the best that they'll come around in a few days.

Really sorry to hear this BTW. Ugh, one thing or another.

[whatcaneyedo]

Reefer Rob are you going to chime in? ... Basically the same thing happened to him a few months ago.

[Frenchie2]

My purple tang has had a "cloudy" eye for months, probably due to running into something in the tank. It doesn't seem to bother him, he swims like a mad man and eats like a pig and seems to see through that eye anyways. I guess that's going to stay like that forever... Sorry to read about this incident... What a bummer!

go with reduced tighting 2 hrs on 2 off 2 on 2off 2on and then off for the night use just actinics for a while, you can try and adding some melifix to the water to help with the eyes. If the frags have any tissue they may come back.

good luck,
Bill

[christyf5]

The frags have some tissue. A couple are unbelievably bleached. Most have very thin looking tissue so I would imagine that will slough off as the days go one. Then again I have had a few recover before when I babied them.

[JDigital]

Sorry to hear the bad news Christy.. I too would assume that if a bulb broke it would cease to function.. Glad I use DE's now, forces me to use the glass shields.